2-4-16 Mother India

Mother India the epic drama film that it is, showcases a plethora of social commentaries about India as the nation makes waves of societal upheaval in a post-colonial world wherein the lead role, Radha, a woman raising two children in a rural Indian village which is to act as a microcosm for India as a whole in the events that take place. The scope that I will choose to focus on is based off of the sub-heading with insights and claims from a Rosie Thomas on the normative and transgressive representations of femininity in the film.

Radha is the largest component to the message of evolving ideals regarding femininity and the social expectations put on women in the post-colonial Indian culture as she undergoes many changes to her character at different milestones that separates the film into three stages of evolution as a woman: from youth and ascribed gender roles, to emerging female empowerment through struggle, to actualized woman willing to combat patriarchy directly.
Allowing first for the first few minutes from the film's present day Radha wherein she is an older woman to be grouped with the final stage, we first start with Radha as a young woman, recently married and working with her husband on the land where they live and trying to feed their family of five including their grandmother. The characters struggle underneath the corrupt and greedy Sukhilal, the landowner, who represents the general oppression of the lower classes as well as part of patriarchy. In one of the songs the lyrics express how hard they toil on the land and that "the fruit of our hardwork is swindled away" signifying that these people recognize the oppression put on them by Sukhilal and yet because it is the status quo it is accepted, though not without proper complaint. Radha in this section of her growth may or may not exactly recognize the way in which Sukhilal has his grips on the people but regardless, she, like the others in the village, accept this fact and try to live their life the best way they can and live content with the social dynamics at play. Only Radha begins to question this.

The beginning moment for Radha's ascension to becoming a the strong and empowered woman that she is at the end of the film and her life is when she convinces her husband to work some neighboring land -- land that is riddled with boulders and hard soil -- making it near impossible the effectively clear the land for use. And yet, Radha and her husband work the lands. They sweat profusely, day in and out, the camera shots show their toiling faces covered in sweat underneath heavy farming equipment for tilling and moving the large boulders, showing Radha and her husband as equal. For once, a woman's appearance here is not their only merit. Women can be strong and work hard in all the same ways a man can. Then begins a long and arduous test of both Radha's faith and mettle after her husband loses his arms whilst they were working the land together. Radha, without so much as a thought, full-heartedly intends to care for her husband in his state and it isn't until Sukhilal makes another appearance to convince Radha's husband that he is shameful and should not need a woman to look after him as though it were somehow a sign that he was a weak man (despite having no arms). As a result, he runs away from his family, the musical score switching to a shrill and somber tune to reflect his exact emotions about himself and the situation he was left in. Unable to face his wife or children and accept any further pity, he runs towards what viewers can only presume was his death. His running away at the jest and mockery from Sukhilal could be viewed as an example of just how fragile masculinity can be. The very thought of having to live a life wherein a man must rely on a woman is so threatening that he would sooner run away and die. Whereas Radha stays, pregnant, with two toddlers and her grandmother. But she soon faces even strong forms of adversity than she could have ever expected. Her grandmother passes away, she sells back her oxen to Sukhilal, and begins to work the land on her own. Trudging with this large plough, she assumes both typical male and female roles.

To make matters worse for her, a massive flood takes over the entire village and the agricultural land. She then loses her newborn baby in the flood as it passes away, her son Birju nearly dies of starvation, and in a moment of weakness out of necessity for hers and her son's survival, she sees Sukhilal to receive aid. Sukhilal, being the idol of patriarchy that he is, makes attempts to sexually coerce her only to fail as, Professor Ghosh mentions in her counter argument to Thomas' point, Radha recognizes through her concept of marriage and that loyalty allows her to muster the courage to refute his advances and maintain her integrity and avoid being degraded further by this man.

Years pass by and we're shown a sunny, vibrant Radha with her healthy two boys, now men, Birju and Ramu amidst scenes of Radha standing proudly with a hoe over her shoulder looking outward while the camera looks up at her. We're witnessing the strength of a woman as well as the strength of India itself when we see Radha like this. She was determined to not be held back by the weight of societal nor patriarchal pressures. In the shot where Radha is standing with the hoe draped over one of her shoulders, the angle also makes sure to leave only a backdrop of sky to create the illusion of Radha's intensity and size. She is big, strong, and hardworking. Three particular traits that would typically not be representative of a woman in India for the time let alone most of the world. Radha begins changing what it means to be feminine without necessarily incorporating masculinity. The testament to this is how Birju, her son becomes the embodiment of masculinity and the ways in which he makes attempts to remedy the plight of the village under the hands of Sukhilal. Birju resorts to violence in nearly every way whereas Radha still maintains a non-violent approach to conflict mediation. Birju fighting for the well-being of himself, his mother, and everyone in the village resorts to the necessity of a gun to solve his problems. A gun becoming the only method of removing the oppressive patriarchal figure that presides over the village. The gun then becomes a symbol of male aggression in a sense and Radha knows this and takes the weapon from Birju with the help from Ramu he other son and begins to break the gun. This scene where Radha is smashing the gun against the well while her son tries to break his way inside the home shows a symbolic attempt to break this aggressive and problematic masculinity that causes people nothing but trouble. Her attempts to stop this warpath that Birju is on were in vein. It isn't until Birju returns to the village with a small militia to take down Sukhilal and subsequently his daughter Rupa that Radha takes up a gun herself and shoots her son Birju for the sake of saving Rupa. The camera looks again up at the disgruntled and powerful domineering Radha amidst a bright background thus making her even darker looking as she wields the gun we are left with a person that has broken the gender binary after she utilizes this symbol for masculine aggression to kill a proponent for masculine aggression while saving someone that is an example of typical femininity. Radha evolves in this moment into an actualized character that is multidimensional as a person. She is merely Radha a woman that has all the capabilities that a man has and has exhibited them throughout the film.

We're then left with the final scene with Radha hugging a piece of earth from the land she's lived on for years and it isn't until everyone has her consent to work the land through more modernized means. Despite being a woman, at the end she becomes the one in power as the mother of the land or the Mother of India in a broader sense. Radha has evolved over time from the normative example of an Indian woman the lives to serve her husband and care for their children to a woman capable of anything, working through many of the hardest toils, and assuming a role of authority over a previous male domination. These motions that Radha goes through are reflective of what India was navigating in terms of where women stand in a modernizing and adjusting post-colonial nation and how they will over time no longer be bound by the restrictive gender normative values and traditions of an old and oppressive patriarchy and instead work together to forge a strong nation for themselves.